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Language Skill Building with Lego Blocks

Posted on
January 19, 2017 by
Bilingual Therapies

The key to working on speech and language goals is not to make it boring and tedious for the kids. Instead of having them think you’re infusing drills, tailor them in such a way that they are actively participating in skill-building without even realizing it. Using toys and items that children adore can often increase participation and success. Lego blocks are a great resource to use with kids of all ages to focus on a variety of speech and language goals.

Lego building is a wonderful way to work on articulation, turn taking, and vocabulary building. Use a Lego instruction manual to do this activity, or create a model for kids to duplicate. To speed this process up some, give students a baggie filled with the Lego pieces that they will need. Working as a team, one child will describe the pieces that they need and how to put them together. The other child will follow the detailed verbal instructions without seeing the model. Keys to focus on are using plenty of descriptive words (talk about adjectives), articulation use, and sequencing of piece use. If the child making the model is confused, it’s the perfect time for them to practice asking questions. When finished, compare the models and see how similar they are. Discuss what could be done to help in the future if you were building something. Switch roles for additional practice.

Younger students may use Lego bricks for an I Spy game. Select a handful of different Lego pieces or mini figures. Place all of the pieces in a row so they are easy to be seen. Model how to play and say, “I spy with my little eye a Lego piece that is _____.” Next, have the kids repeat this and look for pieces that do not fit the description and move them out of the line. Keep giving new clues until someone is able to guess which piece is left. Allow everyone to take turns switching what they do and using different Lego pieces in the process. Using all mini figures would also make this into more of a Guess Who game that kids will also enjoy.

Remember to think outside of the box. Lego Duplo blocks may also be used to create rhyming word matches, or to build sentences. Words may be written on them with a dry-erase marker. This is something simple to send home for practice suggestions since many families will have building bricks. Be sure to send home instructions in friendly ways so multilingual households will be able to enjoy these activities together.

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